Letter: More medical info about homosexuality welcome

Rep. Steve Hickey has called on the South Dakota medical community to speak out on the relationship, if any, between homosexual behavior and health.

To date, only Dr. Weiland of Rapid City has responded to this call, at least on these pages. However, Dr. Weiland assures us that many more comments from the medical community will be forthcoming. I fear this is mistaken. I also fear that it will be difficult to have a balanced conversation, partly because discussion participants often are vilified as purveyors of hate, bigotry, ignorance and discrimination. Such language not only inhibits discussion, it often better describes the name-callers themselves than the objects of their wrath.

I hope members of the medical community will speak out. Further, I hope that some future writers will address facts reported in the HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report published in December 2012 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report states that males who have sex with males (MSM) constitute about 4 percent of the U.S. male population. Yet in 2010, MSM’s accounted for more than 75 percent of the new HIV infections among males in the United States. I also hope that comments by medical personnel will address the arguments supporting the U.S. and other countries’ restrictions on blood donations from MSM’s.

These facts have no implications concerning our love and kindness toward the LGBT community. But such facts surely have a place in discussions about public policy.